The Rochester Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative, an initiative that has become the framework for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “Empire State Poverty Reduction Initiative,” has recently asked the community to show its support by endorsing the group’s guiding principles on its website.

“Through the community engagement and planning process that led to the conception of the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative, a number of barriers were identified, including structural racism, community building, and trauma,” RMAPI executive director Leonard Brock said in a statement. “In an effort to increase community awareness, encourage policy changes, align funding priorities, and spur direct action, we are asking individuals and institutions to endorse what is widely known as the RMAPI principles. People living in Rochester and across the region can join in this poverty-reduction effort by endorsing the RMAPI principles, and sharing them with friends, family, and colleagues. This establishes a critical mass that not only ignites movement toward the goal, but also creates a ‘movement’ to accomplish that goal.”

RMAPI is currently studying its efforts to reduce poverty in three designated neighborhoods in Rochester, after which the group said it will implement the programs in other areas of the city.

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